Oral history interview with Juanita Nelson, 1999

Biographical Note

Juanita Morrow Nelson was born in Cleveland, Ohio on August 17, 1923. Nelson grew up in a poor Black Cleveland neighborhood with her working-class, Atlantan parents and two younger siblings. She attended Central High School before enrolling at Howard University in 1941. While at Howard, Nelson organized some of the first student sit-ins through the NAACP and was subsequently arrested. In late 1943, Nelson left Howard University for Western Reserve University (Case Western Reserve University). She began working as a journalist for Call and Post, a Cleveland-based African American newspaper. Through her work at Call and Post, she met Wallace (Wally) Nelson, her husband of 54 years. Nelson co-founded Peacemakers, an American pacifist organization, with her husband and Marion and Ernest Bromley. She received a degree in speech pathology from Ohio State University. In 1957, Nelson left Cincinnati, Ohio, for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1970, Nelson moved to Ojo Caliente, New Mexico, and in 1974, she and her husband moved to Deerfield, Massachusetts. Nelson was a tax resister from 1948 until her death in 2015

Scope and Contents

Juanita Nelson discusses her childhood in Cleveland, early participation in social action, and her parents' influence, especially the strong will of her mother. Nelson explains her decision to attend Howard University in Washington, DC and her encounters with overt racism there. She discusses her leadership in student demonstrations in 1942 and 1943 and the Howard NAACP Committee on Discrimination. Nelson recalls actions targeting the United Cigar Store and the Little Palace Cafeteria. After transferring to Western Reserve University, Nelson met George Houser and joined Cleveland CORE. Nelson recalls how she met her husband Wally Nelson. She explains her decision to pursue pacifism as a lifestyle and remarks on her employment stints in Chicago, Illinois and Yellow Springs, Ohio. Nelson discusses how she and Wally became committed tax resisters in 1948. She discusses the founding of Peacemakers and the contributions of Marion and Ernest Bromley, Abraham Johannes (A.J.) Muste, David Dellinger, and others. Nelson talks about the mission of Peacemakers, her experience in that community, and the Committee on Human Relations of Cincinnati CORE. Nelson discusses the time she and Wally spent at Koinonia Farms (Koinonia Partners) in Americus, Georgia, an integrated intentional community targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. Additionally, Nelson summarizes the internal conflict regarding Communist membership within CORE. She recalls an impromptu demonstration she participated in against a truck stop on Route 40, as well has her subsequent imprisonment, institutionalization, and seventeen-day hunger strike. Also discussed is Reverend Dr. Prathia Hall and Nelson's work with United Farm Workers and Southwest Alabama Farmers Cooperative Association (SWAFCA).

Subjects

• Civil rights demonstrations--United States.
• Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.
• Congress of Racial Equality.
• Imprisonment--United States.
• Interviews.
• Koinonia Partners.
• Michaels, Sheila, 1939-2017, interviewer.
• Nelson, Juanita--Interviews.
• Nelson, Wallace F.
• Oral histories.
• Pacifism.
• Peacemakers.
• Peace movements--United States--History--20th century.
• United States--Race relations--History--20th century.
• War tax resistance.